"A key trend today in developing a smarter power grid is bidirectional communication and real-time control of the equipment in the grid's transmission and distribution substations," said Jason Chiang, senior strategic marketing manager in Altera's Industrial Business Unit. "Our FPGA-based HSR/PRP reference design enables equipment manufactures to build flexibility, performance, reliability and product longevity into their systems while lowering system costs and future proofing designs."

The Flexibilis HSR/PRP IP included in the reference design is a triple-speed 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet Layer 2 switch that is scalable from 3 to 8 ports and is compliant with the IEC 62439-3 standard. The IP is optimized for use on an Altera low-power, low-cost Cyclone IV FPGA, Cyclone V FPGA or Cyclone V SoC, which feature an integrated dual-core ARM® Cortex™-A9 processor subsystem. Cyclone V SoCs enable customers to reduce component costs by implementing their HSR/PRP switch along with the associated software stacks running on the ARM processor subsystem in the FPGA. For timing synchronization, the HSR/PRP solution supports IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) Version 2. Altera and Flexibilis are showcasing the FPGA-based HSR/PRP reference design in Altera's booth at Embedded World 2013, located in Hall 4, Booth 436.

"The IEC 62439-3 standard is rapidly evolving, making the flexibility of an FPGA an ideal platform to base our FSR IP on," said Heikki Ala-Juusela, chairman of the board at Flexibilis. "Altera's highly integrated FPGAs and SoCs allow users to reduce their total cost of ownership while at the same time leverage the device's performance to handle Gigabit Ethernet traffic. This HSR/PRP solution ensures designers can future-proof their substation automation systems by ensuring communication with future generations of intelligent electronics devices."

Flexibilis develops FPGA based communication products and intellectual property (IP); the main business being the licensing of IP cores for device manufacturers. Flexibilis also develops custom FPGA designs and software for its domestic and international customers. Flexibilis is a privately owned company headquartered in Tampere, Finland.

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